When the Day Met the Night
by frecklefacehunter
Summary: One murdered girl. One devastated roommate. One hunter who wants to make it right again. In 2003, two years before Sam came back into the business, Dean stuck with John finding cases around the country. Now they're tracking a killer of a teenage girl. There they meet the girl's best friend, Blake Huntley, a girl that Dean finds he just can't stay away from. Dean/OC
1. Toni

_**Story Info**_

**Title: **When the Day Met the Night

**Fandom: **Supernatural

**Rating: **T

**Pairings:** Dean/OC

**Summary: **Dean and John get word of a case at Cornell University. A girl was murdered in the dorm building where nobody except students who lived there could enter. John drags him to New York and there he meets Blake Huntley, the best friend of the murdered girl. It seems like whatever killed her friend is now after her and Dean takes it upon himself to keep her safe. Blake winds up changing his life, but will he follow his heart or listen to his hunter instincts?

**Spoilers: **None, this story takes place a year before Dean goes to get Sam at Stanford.

_**Chapter Info  
**_**  
Title: **Prologue  
**  
Number: **1/18 (subject to change)  
**  
Warnings: **Death, gore, very brief sexual reference  
**  
Author's Note: **This story is a _re-write_ of an old one I did. It will basically be all the same with the exception of a couple things. I bet nobody remembers this, it was so long ago, but that's okay because this version will be better. :D I just want to say that the _Story Info _will be only on this chapter while the _Chapter Info _will change and be on every chapter. :) If anybody wants to see what the OCs look like, let me know and I can post some pictures. Last point, the chapters will definitely get longer after this, this is technically the prologue. Other than that, enjoy and I'd love some reviews!

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Blake Huntley never thought she'd be on a campus of over twenty thousand people. She hated being around so many people, but her class schedule made it so she was smack in the middle of the quad as classes changed. Cornell University in Ithaca, New York had always been her first choice despite the fact that she was from Maine. The campus was up on the tallest hill around, overlooking Tompkins County. She could almost see into Dryden, the next town over, from her dorm room. All the buildings were built in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Trees lines all the sidewalks and cars zoomed around quickly, barely looking at the people crossing the street. People didn't know how to say "excuse me," though, as they ran back and forth to classes, some on bikes. Blake just wanted to get home, but she still had one class to get through.

Luckily it was in her major, astrophysics, so she sat through the boring lecture easily, listening to the drone of the professor and ignoring the idiots who were only there for the credits as they whispered to each other and threw paper. Someone to her left kept popping their gum and she was trying to hold her breath as the kid next to her kept silently farting.

Finally the hour ended and she walked quickly back to her door, sighing softly as she shut the door behind her. Luckily it was empty. She was in a large, four-person room with her best friend of ten years and two other randoms that they were forced to request. She and Toni Walker shared one side of the room while the other two, Heather Finch and Brenda Boss, shared the other side. She got along great with Toni and Heather, but Brenda lived up to her last name and tried to take over the room. Toni and Heather ignored her, but Blake was shy and hated yelling so she just went with whatever the older girl said. (Blake just figured, as a senior, Brenda just was testy and wanted to get out of there.)

The other three were in class so Blake stripped down into her panties and bra and put her robe on. She would take a long, luxurious shower and then do homework. She had a lot more than she wanted to think about at that moment. She sighed and grabbed her shower caddy—complete with shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, razor, shaving gel, and scrub—and made her way down the hall. The building was way too quiet, usually full of loud music and random people screwing in the middle of the day. She just shrugged and opened the bathroom door. Nobody was in there and she was tempted to lock the door so she could have the place to herself at least for a little while, but she didn't because she could get in trouble.

She went to the bathroom and over to the mirror to brush her teeth quickly. She walked towards the shower stall farthest away from the door, kind of around a corner, and for that reason it was the best. Blake liked being alone and thinking, especially in the shower. But something was wrong. Her brows furrowed as she looked at the ground. There was something on the floor in front of it, something wet and dark, too dark to be water even with the grey floor underneath. She slowly walked closer, the only sound being her feet slowly padding across the floor. Her breath caught in her throat and she gulped as she slowly knelt down, her fingers moving towards the liquid. She touched it and jerked back the moment she did. She looked at her fingers as the thick, crimson liquid stained her pale skin. She glanced up and something in the stall caught her eye. She gasped loudly and scrambled away on her hands and knees, across to the opposite wall, and screamed loudly in terror. The wall wasn't far enough away. There was a body in the stall and the closer she looked, the more she recognized it. The familiar blonde hair crusted with dried blood, the once lively brown eyes blank and staring at the wall as if made they were of glass, the shirt Blake herself had bought for a sixteenth birthday covering her torso, the jeans that actually belonged to Blake covering her legs.

"Toni," she whimpered, starting to sob.


	2. Time to Work

**Title: **Time to Work

**Number: **2/18 (subject to change)

**Warnings: **Language, very slight sexual reference

**Author's Note: **I have a trilogy for this story planned out and I'm so excited to get this story going again so I can work on the other two. :D Stupid me completely deleted the first draft of the sequel, but I remember what happened. In the meantime, I'm glad you're enjoying this story! Thank you for the reviews! I hope I can trouble you guys for some more. ^.^

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Dean was dreaming about two girls going down on him in Fiji when he was shaken awake roughly. He hardly slept enough as it is and he knew his father just didn't care how much sleep Dean got. They had a job to do and they would do it no matter how much or how little they slept. He blinked his eyes open and looked up at John grumpily.

"Yeah?" he croaked, his voice hoarse. He knew exactly what his dad wanted, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"We've got a case. Ithaca, New York. Get up." _He's so pleasant,_ Dean thought with a roll of his eyes. He knew better than to argue, though and sat up. John looked like he hadn't slept at all, but he hardly ever did. Whenever he wasn't focused on one case, he was working on the case of Mary's murder. Dean stopped a long time ago trying to push his father into bed so he wouldn't be so cranky. Besides, lack of sleep is unhealthy, but John Winchester was stubborn and didn't care. He hadn't really since Dean was a teenager.

Dean rolled off the bed and quickly went into the bathroom for a quick shower. When he was done, he pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt followed by a plaid overshirt and his leather jacket along with some socks and his boots. When he went out, John had already left so Dean quickly packed up his bag and ran outside to the Impala. John wasn't there and Dean looked around, seeing his figure at the front desk checking out. John looked out and gestured to Dean who nodded. He grabbed the keys from the ignition and open the trunk, throwing his bag inside beside John's and slamming it shut. He slid into the passenger seat as John came back out and slid into the driver's seat. He turned the car on and was gone a second later, the tires squealing on the pavement.

"What's the case?" Dean asked, scooting down in his seat and putting his feet up on the dashboard. John glared at him for a second even though he knew Dean wouldn't move before looking back to the road.

"Girl was found dead in the shower stall in a dorm bathroom at Cornell University. Her roommate found her."

Dean whistled lowly and shook his head. "Damn. That sucks. But how do we know it's our gig? It's a college, she probably ODed or got alcohol poisoning or something."

John looked over at him. "Her throat was slit and her guts were on the outside. I don't think she did it herself and I don't think it was drugs or alcohol."

Dean winced a little. He had been doing the job twenty-one years, but somethings still got to him, and his stomach, especially things like that. The girl was probably only eighteen or so and had barely experienced life. Not that Dean's life was so exciting, but he lived for twenty-five years and saw more in his first ten than most people see in their whole lives. And the poor girl that found her, she'd never be the same. Seeing a friend like that, hell seeing _anyone_ like that could change a person's life and give them nightmares. When Dean was younger, it happened to him a couple of times.

"Who was the girl? Why was she killed?"

"Her name was Toni Walker. Her roommate Blake Huntley was the one who found her. Both eighteen, both freshmen at Cornell. Blake was the only one on the floor at the time. They have two other roommates, Heather and Brenda, and they're kind of looking at Brenda because she is known to be mean and rude to everyone and Blake confirmed she hated all of them. The only problem she was in class at the time." He shook his head. "And I don't know why she was killed."

"Awesome," he said sarcastically. He had a feeling it wasn't their gig, it probably was this Brenda girl or some other serial killer psycho, but when John's mind was set on something, there was no talking him out of it. So Dean just turned up the radio, _Rock You Like a Hurricane_ blaring through the speakers as he drifted off into a light slumber where those girls were back and there were now three of them. Hey, it's better than dreaming about the shit he usually dreams about.

.x.x.x.x.

Dean was woken up ten hours later when they finally pulled up to a ratty old motel right outside Ithaca called Falls Motel. He yawned and climbed out to stretch as John went in to check in. He looked around, breathing in the crisp fall air. He would never admit that he loved it. John came out soon after with a key and grunted, pointing towards one of the rooms. He stomped over there and Dean sighed, getting in the trunk to bring out their bags and lug them into the room. He glared at his father as he dropped them by the bed and then fell into his.

"Sleep now," John said. "We're up at six tomorrow to get started." There was no room for argument as he slammed into the bathroom. Dean rolled his eyes and burrowed into the pillows and blankets, grumbling to himself. What else was knew? His father was being an ass. But he tried to make himself fall asleep faster. Counting sheep didn't work, mostly because he wasn't five anymore, but usually girls, sex, and whiskey did it. _Anything_ to get his mind off the case. Anything to keep his mind off the fact that like every other hunter, he'd one day die alone.


	3. Sunday Morning

**Title: **Sunday Morning

**Number: **3/18 (subject to change)

**Warnings: **Language, angst

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much for all the feedback! :) Sorry this is so slow, I'm trying to get back into writing in general, so bare with me. Any more reviews would be lovely!

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When Blake woke up on Sunday morning, she regretted it. It was one of those typically sunny mornings with birds chirping and no clouds in the sky, but there was a storm dwelling inside Blake's body and she had no control over it. Her eyes were still full of tears even though she had cried herself to sleep the night before. She looked across the way to where Toni's bunk was. It looked as if she were coming back to it, as if she had just gotten up to run to the bathroom and would come running back in, her eyes bright and her body vibrating as she couldn't wait to tell Blake about Chris, the guy she had met about six months ago online and started dating. He moved to their town to be with her and she was so in love with him. Blake didn't have a way of contacting him to tell him about Toni's death; he'd probably be devastated.

Blake managed to drag herself out of bed. She had told Toni's mom that she would gather all of Toni's things and box them up so that when they came up to identify her and take her body to be cremated, they could just grab the boxes and go instead of lingering. They could go through their beloved daughter's stuff in her bedroom back home where she spent eighteen years instead of a small dorm where she was only there for a couple months, too cold and so not who Toni was. Toni was colors and life, big personality. Not this little, dark box that she was forced to live in.

Brenda was the only one still in the room when Blake's blurry eyes managed to look around. Heather was probably gone with her boyfriend, Ian or something, and Brenda never got out of bed before noon on the weekends if she could help it. (Blake was always up by nine; _why waste the day sleeping when there's so much beauty to behold? _Blake's mom would say.) Brenda was the one who kept the room so dark even when she wasn't asleep. She didn't let anybody put up anything that was "too happy." Her part of the wall was covered with metal bands and horror movies while the other three had to stick to pictures of family only. But Toni made the best of it, no protests, and covered her space with those that she loved, even Blake herself. And that's why Blake loved Toni, she could always find the best.

Blake decided to take a shower before she got started on Toni's stuff. She went over to her closet to grab out her clothing and her shower caddy. "Hey." Blake jumped a little and turend to see Brenda glaring at her from her bunk. "I don't wanna hear you when you're going through shit. And you start crying again, I'm going to flip your ass out the window." Then she turned over and immediately fell asleep again. More tears slipped out of Blake's eyes, but she was used to it really. She wouldn't expect anything different from Brenda. That was one of the more normal things she said.

The bathroom up on their floor was still closed off with crime scene tape, not that she would ever step foot back in there again anyway, so she went down to the floor beneath her. People were either out at breakfast or still asleep so she had the whole bathroom to herself. She did her business and brushed her teeth quickly before going to grab a long, slow, scolding hot shower. She just needed to let the water turn her skin red so she could feel the sting of that versus the pain and numbness of losing her only true friend. She made herself believe that it worked for about ten minutes.

After she got out, she dressed quickly and then made her way to the front desk where the boxes for Toni's stuff were waiting. (Toni's parents had set up with the janitorial service to have them brought up for Blake.) She hauled them upstairs and quietly into her room. Brenda was in the same position she left her in. Blake put away her own stuff and then sighed, looking around the room at Toni's belongings. She truly had no clue where to start. She never thought she'd have to be doing this as if Toni had never really existed. She finally decided to start with clothes in the closet. She grabbed the dirty clothes off the floor and those in the basket to take down for a quick wash. Not that mixing dirty with clean would really matter now, but it felt wrong just shoving them all together without the decency of cleaning them.

While those washed, she went through the shoes and the notebooks, the old yearbooks that made her cry all over again and the many pictures that ranged from the short bit of childhood Toni had before she met Blake. From ages four to eighteen, they were inseparable. Now only death seemed to separate the two of them. She put them all neatly into boxes and stopped only long enough to go back down to the laundry room to switch machines and then again to gather them. She also decided then to wash her bedding and but all of that stuff in the box with her clothes. Next was her desk, which wasn't very full, and Blake decided that she would keep some of the jewelry that Toni collected over the years. Some pieces that were special from her parents she put in the boxes, but some Blake herself had given Toni or she was with Toni when they were bought. Blake couldn't give it all away because then Toni would truly be gone.

Between the washing and the reminiscing, Blake had everything packed away by one PM. She stacked the boxes neatly at the end of her and bed and sat down, staring at her hands and wondering what would become of them. Would her parents just leave everything set up in her room or would they donate anything? Blake really hoped they wouldn't mind her keeping some of Toni's jewelry.

About an hour later, she decided she was hungry enough that she could manage to gulp down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Toni's parents were arriving later that night and after that, all the tears and emotion that would come with that, she didn't think she could eat then. She got up and grabbed her wallet and keys that had her school ID attached to them. Just as she shoved her feet into shoes, there was a knock at the door. She frowned. _I guess they're early..._ She ran a hand through her hair and went to open the door.

.x.x.x.x.

True to his word, John woke Dean up at the crack of dawn to go view the body before the family had it cremated and then to the crime scene. Luckily there were no questions asked about their FBI ID and there was nobody to interrupt them as they went to the crime scene. The hallway was way too quiet to be a girls' dormitory at a college and Dean's dreams of Animal House being real came crashing down.

"Look alive, boy," John hissed to them as they went in the bathroom. Dean's face went neutral and he nodded as he followed his father in. Luckily they didn't encounter any naked woman (more like unluckily in Dean's mind) as the bathroom was pretty much locked up since the death happened. John started poking around while Dean went straight to the spot of the death. He wrinkled his nose as the stale copper tone of dried blood hit his nose. It was in a giant circle on the ground; they hadn't even cleaned it yet. But the smell of bad eggs also floated over him and he nodded.

"Sulfur," he said, as if it were a curse. John sighed and nodded.

"Guess I suspected so."

They searched for EMF and then they decided to have a talk with the roommates down the hall. John was the one to knock on the door and Dean tried to make himself look more professional than he really was. He had his fake FBI badge ready to show the girl who opened the door. They only had to wait about thirty seconds before the door swung open.


	4. Statements

**Title: **Statements

**Number: **4/18

**Warnings: **Language, angst

**Author's Note: **I know I'm not getting a whole lot of feedback, but truthfully I'm _sooo _thankful for what I am getting. :) I don't mind not getting a lot, I want to rewrite this for myself and I want to finish the whole series. (I don't know if I mentioned, but there's 3 stories so it's a trilogy. At least according to right now; that's also subject to change.) Anyway, thanks for the feedback, keep it coming!

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Dean didn't think that he would ever react to a woman the way he reacted to seeing this girl for the very first time. He reacted to women usually the exact same way every time: a confident smirk, eyes narrowed and searching her body as if he were undressing her right then and there, his deep voice low and smooth as he talked her into coming back to his shitty motel room. It was the same, it was just how Dean operated. This job, this life didn't have room for any romantic entanglements. Both feet in or it'd kill ya, that's what he always said. One night of a woman in his bed wouldn't mess with his focus. So when that door opened and he saw that girl standing there, he had an instant deep feeling down in his gut, that something was different. _She _was different and he was done for.

Long brown hair that brushed the small of her back, bright cerulean blue eyes that looked like diamonds sparkling back at him, pale skin the color of milk with a light brushing of chocolate colored freckles across her cheeks, a short stature with unnaturally long-looking legs, clothes that looked as if they belonged to a good god-fearing Christian girl but made her look more beautiful than any slut in skimpy clothes...her sweet smile, her whole persona screamed to Dean that she wasn't the type of girl he should go after, she was way better. She was much too good for him, that much was obvious. Her tiny hand clutched the edge of the door and while her eyes did shimmer, it took him a second to realize it was because of the unshed tears bathing her bottom eyelid.

She turned those eyes to him questioningly as it was he that was closest to her. John elbowed him from behind, but Dean stood there like a knucklehead or a drowning fish with his mouth agape, he wasn't quite sure which. Both, if he was honest with himself, and he was a complete idiot for not saying anything for the few seconds they stood there, though it felt like much longer.

"FBI," John finally interjected, stepping up next to his son and pushing him rather roughly out of the way, though it just looked like a gentle shove to the untrained eye. "I'm Agent John Rose, this is Agent Dean Stradlin. You're Blake Huntley, right?"

The brunette nodded and looked down at her socked feet, crossing her arms protectively across her chest. She sniffed softly, barely a noise loud enough that Dean could hear, and then looked back up. "Of course," she whispered. Her voice was crystal clear despite the pain that was blooming across her face. "Come in, please." She politely moved out of the way and let the men enter the room. Dean looked around the room, his eyes roaming over every detail he could find. He prided himself that he was a bit of a profiler, even if he didn't use it for purposes of the job. He just liked knowing about the people he was trying to help or the ones that he had to kill for doing wrong. "Sorry there's no place to sit."

John smiled softly and shook his head. "That's fine, dear." He leaned casually against the edge of the bed and Dean saw his eyes, too, were flickering around and taking in the appearance. One bunk was actually being used by a girl that was very much asleep and Dean couldn't see her features, though he assumed her to be around Blake's age. The bunk beneath that was completely bare and he assumed that to be Toni's bunk. The other top bunk was a mess of blankets, sheets, pillows, and magazines, but no other girl in that one. The bunk beneath that was made and well maintained, obviously Blake's bunk. A picture of her with an older man was the only photograph she had sitting out and Dean knew it was her father by the way they stood close together, the man with a protective and proud arm around the girl.

Dean bit back the jealousy that started to erupt up his throat.

He turned back as John started to question her, his voice more soothing and less demanding than it usually was. Dean was jealous again. "I know you told everything to the police, but I just want to hear it for myself. If you could possibly start from the beginning and tell us what happened that day, that'd be great."

Blake took a deep, semi-shaky breath and nodded. The guys didn't mind as she walked a couple steps and fell into a creaky, wooden desk chair, uncrossing her arms and instead placing them in her lap. She looked up at them through such timid, innocent eyes that Dean felt like an instant creeper for ever thinking of her in a way other than a platonic way a hunter should think of a witness.

"Well I go out of class at the same time as usual and I decided I wanted to take a shower. Usually I wait until nighttime, but class was hard because it's one of those general requirements and I have a lot of idiots in there with me. The professor was annoyed and I couldn't concentrate and—" She stopped and blushed softly, the blood flooding into her pale cheeks which made her seem even younger than she already was. She shook her head, her wave of brown hair falling over her shoulders, and continued. "Anyway, I just needed to relax. But something was off when I went into that bathroom. I didn't see her right away, Toni—h-her body was around the corner, in one of the stalls that nobody ever used because the janitors don't like to clean them. I thought it was a puddle of water on the floor when I saw it in the mirror, the bathroom floor is kinda dark, ya know?" She shook her head again causing more waves of brown. "But it wasn't. I remember seeing her and screaming and then...then nothing until I woke up the next morning. I didn't see Toni in her bed and I knew that what I saw had really happened." The tears that she had been holding back started to slowly fall, one-by one, down her face that made her look like a beautiful tragedy.

"You saw nothing else out of the ordinary?" Dean spoke for the first time, his voice a little gruffer than he wanted it to and John gave him a look for not speaking up sooner. John had pretty much, in not so many words, informed Dean that he would question because he was younger and the girl could relate to him more. Dean was by no means in any sort of league with college girls, in fact he was pretty much dirt under their shoes in most cases, but being comforted by a young male was something most girls Blake's age seemed to grab onto like a safety net. Dean had just turned twenty-five a couple months before, but some would say he could pass for a college boy by age only, looks wise he definitely didn't have that clean-cut all-American look. He was rough and a bit too tough, rugged if you will. That didn't fly with most guys.

Blake was shaking her head at him again and Dean tried to ignore the way the slivers of sun that managed to worm their way through the tightly-closed blinds made her hair shimmer like gold. "Nothing," she answered. "There weren't any signs that anyone else was even in there. No footprints, no signs of a struggle. It's as if Toni walked in there to use the bathroom and just...exploded." She bit her lip to keep herself from letting out noises, though more tears made trails down her delicate cheeks.

_I'm turning into such a fucking girl._ Dean almost rolled his eyes at himself.

"Did she have any enemies that you're aware of?" was Dean's next question. Blake's eyes went big.

"No, none. Everybody loved her. She was sweet and smart and was one of those people that was nice to everyone even if they didn't deserve it. I mean even she would get angry and come home ranting about the one too many guys that tried to hit on her, a couple that even tried to feel her up. Toni wasn't like that. She didn't dress provocatively, but she has blonde hair and blue eyes and was like five ten. Guys likes that. But Toni had a boyfriend, a guy she met online. Chris? He moved to New York for her, he wanted her to move in with him, but she said she wanted to spend her first year at college in the dorms. Plus her parents would be kind of furious. Anyway, they really loved each other. I don't even think Chris knows yet." She looked down at her hands.

"Did Toni change at all when she started dating Chris?"

Blake shrugged. "I've known her since grade school. We stopped hanging out a whole lot, more so when Chris actually moved here, but that's kind of to be expected. She finally found somebody who liked her for her mind and her interests rather than the fact that she was beautiful. I think that's part of the reason she loved him. But she didn't change who she was. Toni has always been Toni."

"How well do you know Chris? Have you ever met him?"

New boyfriend in her life and then murder? Could be just a coincidence. _But it never is._ Blake's eyes widened again and to Dean, she was starting to look like an anime character and it was starting to freak him out a little. "Chris would never hurt Toni! I've only met him once in person, but he's the kind that looks like GI Joe but is really just a big teddy bear inside. He loved her more than anything, he never would've hurt her." She stopped and looked liked she was going to say something, but her mouth shut and she looked away, embarrassed. Dean cocked his head to the side and he frowned slightly.

"What is it? You can tell us, Miss Huntley."

Blake bit her lip again—_she does that a lot—_and turned her eyes back to him. "Well...I don't know how much the police or the coroner told you about her body. But I come from a town where every other house is a farm and I know what it looks like when a farmer slaughters a cow for its meat. Long cuts, missing organs, straight as nails. Those cuts sliced her organs, they were deep and ragged...I don't think it was just a psycho killer that did that, it didn't look..._human_." She looked away again when she realized she sounded silly, but she didn't sound like that to John and Dean. In fact, that was exactly what they wanted to hear. In the sense of their job and finding out who did it.

"And you didn't think an animal did it?"

Blake frowned. "How could an animal that would be strong enough to do that get onto the third floor of a locked dorm and then get out again without anyone seeing it or making a sound?" Dean grunted softly. _Girl's got a point._

Dean looked around and pointed to the sleeping girl. "Can I wake her?"

Blake raised an eyebrow and stood, crossing her arms defensively. "Sure. I mean...you're the FBI, she won't threaten you." Blake looked away and Dean, not afraid of a little girl, walked over and lightly started shaking the one in the bed.

"_What_?!" the girl snapped to the wall. Dean rolled his eyes. _What a peach._

"I'm Agent Stradlin. You're Brenda Boss, right?"

She turned over with a growl and sat up. She looked between John and Dean and then sent her glare of all glares to Blake who didn't dare look at her furious roommate.

"Why?"

"I'm with the FBI and we're investigating Toni Walker's death."

"I don't care."

Dean frowned. "You should. You girls could all be in danger. Toni was your roommate."

"So? She played loud music and talked about that loser boyfriend of hers too much. She tried to hang-up posters of lame bands and she was way to perky. I'm glad the bitch is dead."

And with that, she slid back under her covers and was out like a light. Dean almost gawked at the girl's sleeping form. He couldn't believe somebody could actually be that way and _not_ be a demon. He was really tempted to dump some holy water over her face, if even just for the fun of it, but he just forced himself to turn around and not wince at the look that Blake was giving him.

"That's the nicest thing she's said in a long time," she croaked, trying to make a joke out of it but failing miserably with the way her small body shook and her bottom lip was trembling between her teeth.

"I'm so sorry," Dean said quietly. Though with a glance at his father, they jus got their prime suspect. _Though anybody who could actually __project that much rage probably wouldn't resort to gutting the girl in the bathroom silently; she'd probably tell everyone exactly how it is. _Still, though, they had to keep her in their thoughts because damn that girl was a bitch! "We'll go now. Thank you for your time, Miss Huntley." He reached into his pocket for the fake FBI cards his dad printed with the number of one of their many cell phones. "Have a good day and please call if anything changes or you remember something important."

Blake carefully took the card from Dean's hand and he ignored the way her soft fingers brushed his bigger callused ones. John bid her goodbye and the hunters made their way out the door and back outside. It wasn't until they were to the car did Dean let out a long sigh. He slumped in the passenger seat as John gunned the engine and pealed away from the building. (Lucky, too, as the campus police was just coming around to check for permits and they didn't want to have to explain why they didn't have a day pass.)

Dean sat quietly in his seat, staring out the window. The fact that he was at all attracted to her was not good and he should probably tell his father so they could call Bobby and get the hell out of dodge. Having an attraction to a witness of a supernatural occurrence was something most hunters ran far and hard from. But Dean wasn't like all hunters, he knew he couldn't just run from this one. Besides the fact that Bobby would probably come after them with a shotgun if they contacted him—John more than Dean—this girl needed him. _Him_. He felt in his bones that he would be the one to save her, he would be the one to protect her from all the bad that could possibly come her way. If all the girls in that building were in danger, he had to be the one to make sure that she was still standing, even if she were the only one left. He knew that was horrible, that he should be wishing for the rest of them alive even if the one sacrifice had to be made, but Dean just couldn't do that. He couldn't wish for Blake to be dead so he could save more people. Because Blake was different and fuck if he didn't hate that fact, that he was starting to drown in just the memory of her diamond eyes and waves of brown hair, but he couldn't deny it and doing so would probably do more harm than good.

_So embrace it all you want, Winchester. But when this case is over and she's safe, you're running as far away from this place as you can and you're not looking back. You're not _feeling _for her and you most certainly aren't dragging her into this shit. She'd die and you'd be wasting your life like Dad. No, you're doing your job and moving on._

Though both he and his conscience knew better said than done.

Dean pried himself from his destructive thoughts and looked to his dad to discuss the case. John was frowning out the front window, concentrating on something in his mind rather than the road.

"Dad?" Dean asked.

John kind of blinked and then glanced over at his son quickly. "We have to think about everything, Dean. Brenda seems like a good bet, but chances are she's just a red herring. We have to look at everything. And that means we have to look at Blake, too."

Dean's eyes widened and when they pulled into their motel, he jumped out and shook his head. "No way! She didn't kill Toni! They were best friends! Just because Toni blew her off a couple times doesn't mean that Blake was harboring an all-consuming hate for her friend. You heard her, they've been friends since grade school."

John frowned harder and stared at Dean as if looking at some weird art piece. "You talk as if you've known her for years," he grumbled. "You don't know her and neither do I. More likely than not, I'm the one wrong here. But we have to exhaust every option or it might come to bite us in the ass. I don't want that to happen and wind up with another body on our hands and a monster on the loose." With that, he shut his door and lumbered back into their room. Dean glared at the motel room door and shoved his hands in his pockets.

He wasn't going to argue with John anymore about it. He knew he was right. Even if Blake was more beautiful than any woman he's ever seen before, chances are that the person they least expect would be the guilty one. Blake didn't look like a psycho killer, but then again, neither did most of the famous serial killers out there. Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy...all looked "normal and nice." Look what they turned out to be. Dean couldn't underestimate her just because she was pretty and young. She could be their psycho, even if Dean really didn't fucking like it.

He sighed and begrudgingly went into the motel with his father to start research. They had many monsters to look into and many more possibilities to mull over in their minds.


End file.
